America's Extinction of Music

I have read several articles posted on Facebook about the "death" of America's music industry.  First we must clarify what America's music industry was.  In short the answer is record labels.  A record label is a company that records, produces, markets, and sells music on either a vinyl album, a cassette tape, or a compact disc.  From a band members point of view, a musician who plays music professionally for live audiences, possibly this would be a new experience.  In America's short history there have been documented successes and catastrophes in the record industry.  A few of the latter would be Prince losing the rights to his own music, and Michael Jackson purchasing the Beetle's entire catalog.  Music like the rest of corporate America became a stock.  The stock market is what has ruined America's economy.  When buying and selling a product usurps the importance of that product and eventually undermines its production, a problem is created.  This is what has happened to America's music industry.  The savvy professionals who used to control the music industry such as Quincy Jones and Dave Grusin have aged out, and we have been left with a newer generation who have not experienced America's real music.  What do I mean by real music?  I mean a religion of music where real human bodies collaborate, perform, record, and sell music on an artistic level.  This product is far more than the faux music being presented today on the global level.  We could say mass marketing music is what has killed our music industry.  The temptation of the hedge fund has influenced all financial instruments, and owners of stock want only to see profits from their investments.  We are not taking the time to understand or appreciate our own products.  It is all about the money, and as I watch and listen to media today this is reinforced.  It has become fashionable to accrue wealth, and consequently we have a new generation of "Yuppies."  It is frightening to acknowledge this.  In the early l980's there was a similar movement in business, and a young upwardly mobile populace of savvy intellectuals took control.  We were presented with a generation of Stepford Wives of both genders.  Polished, slick, hipsters (if truly they were) went about their business of making money.  This was the first generation.  Now we are faced with a second generation of yuppies created from the technology industry.  Quickly they have passed the majority of America, and this new industry has fed itself.  With very little effort our traditional products have been replaced with nary an objection.  It is, because the generation that has created them is using them.  Other generations have become obsolete.  Personally I do not take kindly to this generation hijacking my music industry, because it was not captured honestly.  In the common ruse of the Republican party, instead they changed the system to meet their needs.  Music created on and sold by the computer replaced the real music industry.  The most infuriating ramification of this metamorphosis is the devaluation of music as a commodity.  Yesterday on Facebook I read of an author who predicted this change, and I digress.  The idea that there is too much recorded music to which to listen is absurd.  It is absurd, because what we have abandoned as a nation is quality control.  The movement to glorify "the folks" in media is the black hole.  Abandoning a PROFESSIONAL music industry in lieu of amateur contestants vying for popularity longevity for music will not produce.  Instead it has killed America's music industry.  I think a majority of Americans do not welcome this change.  It is the generation who created this nemesis who is consuming it.  The rest of us idly stand by and observe.  As a professional musician, I am sick and tired of music's professional vocation being represented by this facade.  Pop culture, and I mean the most shallow and insignificant pop culture, is no determinant of music.  Possibly this is why a schism has been created between real musicians and the public.  Real musicians are so far above the level of our pop culture, they are being cast as saints.  In the classical world this erroneously is being exploited.  I listen to WCPE, but I tune out the commentary because it does not do justice to the creators of the music.  Instead classical music has its own social structure, which like pop culture damages rather than reinforces the value of their music.  I am involved with neither of these groups, and I have adjusted.  The group to which I do belong is small, and it is jazz music.  Throughout my lifetime jazz music always has been the mediator of musical bullshit, because it is intellectual music.  Not only is it intellectual, it is spiritual.  Not only is it intellectual and spiritual, it acknowledges the blues, slavery, and other crucial aspects of America's history and soul.  Conspicuously this is absent in our society today.  The idea that a newer  generation of technologically savvy entrepreneurs has accrued the majority of wealth in America at the expense of their own soul  a devil makes.  

The Loyal Order of the White Hairs and Jazz

Having been interested in and having studied jazz music and its history most of my life, it was perplexing to sit at Fayetteville's Botanical Garden and listen to transcriptions of authentic early jazz.  The arrangements were accurate, well chosen, and well played.  Possibly it was the best live brass sound ever I have heard. One must tip a hat both to doctors of music and orchestrally-trained trumpet players.  It even seemed to swing, "In Its Own Sweet Way."  After hearing the concert I began to feel it had been a little too sweet.  Sweet sound is good, but is it realistic?  That is an odd question.  What exactly is a dirty sound?  Jimi Hendrix could explain it with his own playing.  The presence of distortion or dissonance might constitute the definition of a dirty sound.  So could a flatus.  In any event the music was of quality, and like a 'Chopped' judge's cant, "Sounded good, looked good, and reminded me of early jazz."  Sweet could mean not exactly representative of reality today.  The world in which we live is not sweet.  On the contrary it is brutal.  I'm not sure it is brutal everywhere.  Certainly we are reminded, that in Europe they are dealing with the worst migration problem since World War ll.  Terrorism in Syria is driving citizens across borders into poverty.  This is not representative of life in America.  Is it necessary for us to see this in our newspapers and on television newscasts everyday?   This is not representative of our lives.  We should remain abreast of world events, but the campaign of fear and intimidation which has been raging since George W. Bush has run its course.  Americans are beginning to realize we cannot trust either our media or our elected officials.  President Obama is doing the right thing, but he will be moving on shortly.  "Wouldn't It Be Nice" to see a positive news story for a change?  Wouldn't it be nice to see news stories related to our own meager lives?  That no longer seems possible of because who has come to own our news agencies.  If one examines our news, obviously it becomes clear it is propaganda.  It is propaganda, and it is propaganda against the poor and middle class.  Let me rephrase.  It is propaganda in favor of the wealthy ruling class.  If you analyze it further, you could come to understand that that this wealthy ruling class could be considered oligarchic.  It is obvious this group of wealthy earners is not concerned with the majority of America.  They treat us with contempt.  Only they care for themselves.  Wow!  I believe that is unchristian, but this group has been trying to eradicate Christianity for a decade.  Eradicate Christianity?  That sounds like Extreme Islam, Jihad, Al Quaeda, or the Taliban.  It sounds like this group who have been raging holy war on America, but they are here.  They are controlling America from the inside.  My conclusion is America no longer belongs to Americans.   It is not a problem of Mexican immigration.  It is a problem of foreign businesses purchasing American companies.  Rupert Murdock is an example.  The American media never may recover.  It is not good.  Leave it to me to concoct a musical metaphor for this dichotomy.  Popular music could represent the oligarchy, and jazz music could represent the republic.  The republic continually has been quashed in the last decade to what it seems like a point of no return.  Jazz music, the republic, is one of America's true art forms if not her best, and it is nonexistent on both radio and television.  Without that reinforcement, exposure, or education jazz cannot survive in American lives.  We are too busy trying to make ends meet.  The voice of America, her soul and her history in music of the last one hundred years, is quiet.  The oligarchy effectively has pushed jazz to the side making way for their self-indulgent, shallow, immediate gratification.  It is true, and that statement is not a delusion.  I have come to realize in the past weeks that this oligarchy truly are those who do not understand or care to acknowledge jazz, jazz representing America's real voice and soul.  Instead they prefer Jimmy Buffet.  We must conclude that "Margaritaville" does not a national anthem make, but the oligarchy would have you believe it.  Popular music in some mystical way has brainwashed a large segment of the American population into believing that it is the only music.  It seems to have the hypnotic power of Adolph Hiter injected with methamphetamine.  It is interesting that the Nazi party declared jazz music an enemy of the state.  It was a music that had the power of infusing people with positive spirit.  What?  Music that has the power to empower?  Popular music does not do that.  Instead popular music glorifies itself, and yet we as a country have become junkies.  It is easier I suppose, gazing mindlessly at Miley Cyrus rather than searching for more uplifting music in our own music libraries.  I am faced with the task each day when I awake.  Do I rely upon WCPE to feed my soul with music, or do I make my own decisions?  Making your own decision about to what you will listen is more difficult.  You must think.  One does not have to think to turn on the radio.  While WCPE often does play music that enriches my soul, often it plays music from the classic period that in my perception reinforces classism.  The classic period was a time of court and nobility, and for the most part I do not want to be reminded of the constraints of that class system.  The music is quality, but it is laced with compliance and system.  I prefer my music to swing.  Swing?  I prefer the music to which I listen to acknowledge things other than itself.  I prefer for it to be plural.  I have enough trouble not overdosing on my own karma.  If I do take the time to choose my own music, rarely am I disappointed.  Lately it has been the piano preludes of Scribian, and they gloriously are refreshing.  I enjoy the freshness and independence of contemporary music.  I require it, because American society does not recognize this spirit.  As a whole American society has not evolved.  Still we are operating on a level of civil war.  Because society in America still is not equal and fair, confederate terrorism continues.  Possibly murder in America is a plea for recognition, respect, and opportunity.  Upon watching John Cassavetes film "She's So Lovely" it became clear to me that mental illness is a sane Christian's plea for sanity in an insane world.  Our country has become so aberrant and oligarchic that a humble God worshipping schmuck can't process it.  Instead they become artists and interpret the anarchy through their own creative minds often ending in an utter defense of their own sanity.  We can't win, so ultimately we kill our enemy.  It is a tragic state of affairs, one which Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn represent quintessentially.  My heart ached with compassion for their tormented souls and for the return of a sane America.  

With Liberty and Justice for All (Goodbye Mr. Chips)

Do these seminal words from America's "Pledge of Allegiance" include concepts of the civil rights movement?  While Francis Bellamy's infamous words adopted by Congress in 1942 do capsulize patriotic loyalty, the addition of an "equal opportunity employer" would have been fitting.  ?  Certainly liberty and justice for all were quintessential ideas in the forming of America.  The forefathers fervently were seeking freedom from the tyrannical rule of Great Britain.  I did not live during Colonial times, but tyranny is widespread throughout world history.  Wealth comes from forced slave labor, or at least slave-like labor, labor with little to no wages.  
Is it possible that feudalism still is the operant socioeconomic system in America?  Feudalism:  The dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labor, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection.  [sic] Never have I believed in Capitalism, because capitalism is a direct product of politics.  Without politics there can be no capitalism.  Theoretically, as Arnold Schwarzenegger often says comically in the new Terminator film, Capitalism may have meant to represent "free markets."  We all know free markets are controlled by the haves, therefore politics should be a necessary component of capitalism.  I guess it is.  There is a presidential election in a year, and all ready the wheels are turning churning out candidates with fury.  What is the responsibility of this president?  There are several items that should be paramount to an effective president.  You could call them "campaign promises," but often we know these are not honored.  Candidates promise something to get elected, and soon after being elected must pay back nebulous undocumented contributions with the appropriate political decisions.  The president has become a figure head manipulated by big business.  (George Bush)  Truly if one did want to become America's president for the right reasons, a preservation of liberty, justice, and equal opportunity, I can suggest a few things.  First and foremost drug advertisements must be stricken from television.  We must come to understand that the drug lobby, the pharmaceutical industry, and America's medical establishment have become corrupt.  The Affordable Care Act was a reasonable and effective strike against them.  The Obama administration, while successful at passing this legislation, will move on in a year.  Although the Supreme Court did uphold the law, Republicans surely will be fueled by the medical lobby to continue to lob grenades at the legislation.  All ready they have punished the American public for being eligible and receiving Obamacare.  It is unconscionable.  These insurance premiums in one short year have increased four or fivefold almost negating Obamacare's original intention, affordable health insurance for the middle class.  My premium from Blue Cross Blue Shield more than doubled.  ? The Affordable Care Act is not the total solution.  The eradication of the influence of "Big Insurance" and "Big Pharma" is the key.  While we as Americans may appreciate the convenience of big business making our medical decisions, we know it is a travesty.  We tolerate it, and often consequently we die.  Only if we bring fire and brimstone down on our medical providers do they do the right thing.  Otherwise regardless of our illnesses doctors continue to hawk their wares.  It seems to me they are not interested in the intellectual gratification of solving your medical issue.  They are interested in making money, hence "Try a colonoscopy.  I sure know how to do this procedure, because I was trained and have been doing them a long time."  But diagnosing an abdominal illness....  with no lab tests, not procedures, and no support from the machine.  I must digress.  They don't have time for you.  You are not making them money.  Drug advertisements must be stricken from television.  They are misleading, confusing, and laced with subliminal messaging.  Above all they are pointless.  If we could rely upon honest doctoring in America, doctors are the ones responsible for understanding drugs and their effects.  Why should geriatric America be laden with this responsibility?  It is simple.  It is a campaign of fear and intimidation.  Academia has become the same.  Tuition rates are ridiculous.  They empower academics, and this discourages learning.  I recommend a national system.  All academic institutions must be a part of a national organization subject to observation and the possible regulation of a qualified...  Oh sorry.  Do we all ready have a Department of Education?  They are just as sorry as the Department of Wildlife Conservation.  (if there is such a thing)  None of these federal agencies does the right thing.  They are pawns of big business.  No one has the little man's back.  If a university trains students to be academic doctors, then where are the jobs?  The jobs are held ad naseum until the professors get tired.  (This is a lifetime)  The opportunities that should be available to new graduates are held by their own professors.  ?  I suggest a rotation in a federal system.  This is not a "No Child Left Behind."  This simply is a mandatory visiting professor clause, which would require professors, tenured or not, to circulate leaving their jobs open periodically.  Professors should circulate, gainfully employed, but in different geographical areas.  What enlightenment could occur engaging new unbiased contingencies of the American population.  The ability to relocate is a large favorable accomplishment on a thickly padded resume.  Quickly it negates nepotism, favoritism, and political bias.  You may be a big fish in Chapel Hill, Mr. Chips, but try on St. Louis for size.  Yes!  I can imagine professional sports, great food, and jazz music a large improvement make over midlands North Carolina.  Erskine Bowles no longer has your back.  No one has your back.  You are on your own, one large and grandiose stipulation of an academic.  You must be an independent scholar.  Good luck with that.  

"Damn Yankees, I Mean Commies!"

Maybe Dick Cheney is a commie.  Maybe many of the wealthy elitist businessmen in America are Reds.  Maybe they used to be on a list back in the day, a time when America searched for and persecuted American citizens with a communist interest.  What kind of publications do you read?  Do you attend party events?  Reds. Commies.  We as a nation have lost track.  Are we not interested anymore?  Is China too far away, further than the U.S.S.R, to drum up anticommunist support?  Certainly North Korea is in the public eye as is Iran, but commies?  Reds?  Once upon a time in America this battle was paramount.  It helped define America as did our nightly television schedule.  That line up of programs on network TV before the cable explosion helped define a nation.  We lived by it, that televisions schedule.  We waited patiently for the new schedule in the fall and new shows.  Now it is all gone.  Tim Cook speaking with Charlie Rose a year ago scorned this television schedule.  Whether he acknowledges it or not as CEO of Apple, television once was an art form.  It came out of vaudeville, stage, theater, Broadway, and the minstrel shows.  Once television was entertainment, and it was approached with the same respect and devotion as other art forms.  Then television required talent and when it was excellent, artistry.  Craft can substitute in a pinch, but the performers were shooting for artistry.  Now it is all gone.  Time/Life bought it all, and now they are selling it in boxed sets for a hundred dollars a pop.  I have bought some of it.  The thing is, we used to get it for free.  We used to have clean drinking water for free.  We used to have clean air and a cooler planet.  Now we have "reality."  Flick on the box and watch your coworkers fill time with lame, uninteresting, emotionally laden soap.  The Golden Age of Hollywood has continued.  While there may not be lavish musicals, still we have movies that are well-made and cared for.  Film continues, but television is dead.  Why is television dead?  Ask Tim Cook.  It is so antiquated, that interface sitting in your family room with your loved ones.  I think that is a gay thing.  In America we lived our lives with and by that box, and it was a good thing.  It gave us direction.  It gave us a mainstream.  It gave us unity.  Now we have nothing, except a handful of lame late night talk show hosts.  The guys that bent the shaft, that questioned and ridiculed the man, and thought for themselves as adults bailed.  The void in late night TV is inescapable.  The thing is, I don't want to choose the schedule.  That's what a CEO is for.  It is his job to hone that talent, begin careers, and satisfy America viewing tastes.  Naw, screw it.  Anything goes.  The same is true with music.  Let's just not care about anything excellent.  I am getting deja vu.  Slackers?  Grunge?  Baggie pants?  Flannel?  Low key?  They had a voice, and it was music.  That movement had a message, a voice, and a following.  Today our voice is Kanye West, and he is not qualified to be on stage as a musician.  It is bought and paid for.  While I have empathy for Bruce Jenner, and watching him transition is entertaining to me for some reason, he is just another aging frustrated man looking for notoriety?  Is he?  I would like to know more.  Is he leaving his 'wife?'  Does he not love her anymore?  Does he have feelings for men, or does he just like to dress in women's clothes to get off?  Join the club.  I don't think Bruce Jenner would have gotten a television show otherwise.  Is that motivation enough to change your sex?  Television is not what it used to be.  Reality is a term effectively which eliminated the competition.  In one fell swoop artistry was erased from consciousness.  Boom.  That seems like a commie thing to me...

The Myth of a SuperHero

America officially has been inducted into the Superhero Hall of Fame.  Sony's commitment to blur the boundary between realism and animation has succeeded.  We are a mash of neurosis, dreams, and the elite forces of superheros, but they aren't real.  Sony would like for you to believe they are real.  That was their intent, to blur the boundary between realism and animation.  How would a maladjusted child know the difference?  Hour upon hour of rote playing of violent warlike video games is not reality.  With the condition of our public education system, environment, and economy kids are on their own.  Go figure when a neglected soul decides to burn out in a blaze of glory.  Superheros are not a practical example for reality, and yet they have proliferated.  Not only are superheros found in graphic novels, film, television, and 'them internets,' they are controlling our lives via corporate America and academia.  I almost have a doctorate degree in music, and all around me are musicians frantically trying to reinvent the wheel.  "Relax, mon.  Music is important, but it is not the most important thing."  Today if you resume doesn't read like that of a superhero, evidently you are not qualified to have a job.  Can we get real please?  I am sick to my stomach of reading exaggerated resumes, VITA files, and biographies.  It could begin with college professors.  I would like to know if they have anything to offer.  I don't need to hear about performances all over the world, publications, and grants.  If they are so busy attaining this, how can they make time for teaching?  How can they make time to impart grassroots knowledge which could help a student grow?  It's ludicrous, and it is not real.  These are fabricated images which lie to the public in the name of selfishness.  Maybe we can dispense with the superheros for a minute and concentrate on doing things that will save the earth.  Maybe we can save the refugees?  That is not superhero material.  It doesn't stroke your ego.  Where is the Clinton Foundation?  In a time of crisis in Europe, where are these charitable foundations?  Bill?  Bill.  Mr. Clinton?  Mr. Gates?  Google?  Here is an opportunity of philanthropical importance.  Save some refugees?  Jimmy Carter would be in.  A Bush daughter?  We're too busy trying to invent the autonomous automobile, which is not this at all.  Like Uber self-driving cars are merely a restructuring of previously predicted models of the future.  Call them trams?  Call them mono-rails?  Call them pods?  Whatever.  Electrically powered systems of mass transit already have been invented.  They are called trains and subways, but that is not millennial or fashionable.  How you make ta vehicle go where you want it to is with track.  Go figure?  Self-driving cars in Los Angeles?  Thank you, but no thanks.  "Spin City" is off the air and out of politics, but it has entered the world of corporate America.  I don't want to read about fictitious superheros.  I don't want to hear about how much money millennials have amassed.  It is peanuts, and it is boring.  It is based on an iPhone, and who cares?  When the wireless network in America comes crashing down, none of it will matter.  Sony has learned its lesson.  Blurring the lines between reality and animation is not a prudent model for survival.  When we pull our heads out of our asses, the stench of suffocating greenhouse gas not a superhero will create.  It is time to wake up America.  Resume:  Past Experience:  Cook, Gardener, Mechanic.  "You're hired."  The rest of you can sit in a room and play video games.  

The Underground Railroad

Dear Pen Pal,

    Truly I would like the military to finish its current training exercise.  I understand Communist China is parading their weaponry to commemorate the anniversary of the end of World War ll.  I understand that Vladimir Putin is flexing his atrophied biceps.  I understand that ISILanemous continues to rage havoc on Syria.  I suggest deployment.  Finish loading the two-mile-long war train underneath Reilly Rd, finish building your access points and loading docks for this train, and stop training.  Go kill the enemy.  I have had enough of the training, both literally and figuratively.  I don't know whose great idea it was (General Electric) to put a slow moving conveyor belt underneath the ground in New Mexico.  (It is out of business, the Chevron Questa mine.)  After over a decade of complaints finally our EPA shed it yes men, lobby addicted, dead weight and decided to do its job.  It didn't take long for China and the EPA to close down that Moly mine.  Like Duke Power there were infractions everywhere, the most popular of course is dumping their waste into our rivers.  The Taos Hum is no more I will conclude.  I don't know whose great idea it was (B.R.A.C. generals or Ashton Carter) to put a portion of the Cape Fear Railways underneath Reilly Rd.  I understand this decision from a point of national security and terrorist threat.  Munition trains would be a likely target for whom?  At the world's largest military installation, I'm not sure a would be terrorist could get on post.  They could have ten years ago, but not now.  With the B.R.A.C expansion Ft. Bragg is transforming from a modest army installation into?  I would guess that underground railroads, not the kind of Harriet Tubman, would be synonymous with our missile control center buried in the mountains of?  New Mexico!  Give that man a prize.  Isn't it New Mexico, or is it Nebraska?  With Ground Forces Command being moved to Ft. Bragg, I would think underground is the new fifty.  I don't know whose great idea it was to put the Army's SD60MAC's underneath the ground.  Didn't we learn a lesson from Taos?  The pollution and radiation from low frequency drives and its electrical processing equipment travels faster through the earth than it does through the air.  Placing it underground and having it run 24/7 only is going to create havoc with Fayetteville residents, or is that even a concern?  

Communism, Socialism, and Erudite Millennials

When I grew up my cousins on the Greene Farm, like many people in America, fervently felt that "Commies" were the enemy.  It was surprising to me when we traveled to the farm, because I not yet was old enough to take exception with anyone except the bullies in my neighborhood.  Only now in the last few days have I realized, that I am not an American, or rather I do not share the same life's philosophy of those around me.  Americans seem to worship capitalism as a graven image, and passionately their political sentiment is refusing to recognize a potential danger to their health, or criticizing a pundit for distracting them from their capitalist lives.  Old school railroad workers are like this, or at least the ones I have met.  It is a story right out of Appalachia similar to the Hatfields and the McCoys.  It is frightening this animalistic behavior defending one's property to the death unable to consider rational negotiations. This seems to be the way we are in America.  Americans are so brainwashed with capitalism, the pursuit of money for survival, that nothing else matters.  Each time I point out or complain the art no longer matter, well.  I get it now, the response.  They don't want to hear it.  If you don't fit into that big, mindless, roaming herd, than you are a malcontent.  Fitting into that herd is as paramount as scratching for pennies in the ground.  What is a "Commie" anyway?  It is slang for a Communist, and upon reflection I don't think the citizens of communist countries  have much choice about their socioeconomic systems.  Communism is government by rule, and as Americans we feel it is a threat to our freedom.  If you had met Russian immigrants, say like Irving Berlin, you would see people exactly like us.  They did not have a choice the socioeconomic system into which they were born.  This is why they immigrated to the America, the land of the free and the home of the brave.  This is why many nationalities of American citizens immigrated to the U.S.  We are a country of immigrants, except ironically for our own Native Americans who we abused, murdered, and excluded as savages.  The term "Commies" should be applied to the leaders of these systems, and they are famous.  Never have I understood the impetus for the derogatory connotation of the term "Socialist."  Only now have I come to realize, that no one in America seems to understand it. Instead it is a blind fight of us against the enemy.   We sling the term about mindlessly, as did my cousins on the farm.  It gives them a purpose.  It seems we in America are afraid of something.  I have traveled to many other countries, and none of them are as blindly passionate as Americans.  Americans are selfish.  Socialists are not, because they have been around a long time and understand  camaraderie can be more important than money.  There is a great likelihood many of us never will have money, but that does not mean we cannot live effectively.  In many ways you will live more effectively without money, because you will be forced to realize and understand things which more are important to humankind.  Maslow's hierarchy of needs is telling, but if we travel through his studied continuum we will develop a foundation and understanding of our own existence.  Wealth in America has become problematic.  B-I-N-G!  There it goes again, a sting that those surrounding me in America don't agree.  "Why are you making waves?  Why are you chewing on sour grapes?"  I am not making the point, because I am unhappy or poor.  Neither is true.  I am making the point, because most of those living around me who are not wealthy are unhappy.  Is Capitalism the idea of having to buy one's happiness?  I think not, and America was not begun that way.  While Puritan Americans often perished in the harsh conditions of North America, with their challenges came beauty and spirituality.  These are the things that keep me upright each day.  When I am able to indulge my senses in a positive way, I am at peace.  Unfortunately modern America and the mechanisms that are creating the wealth are infringing upon that freedom.  Each day my sight, sounds, smells, and and tactical feelings are challenged with negative influences.  I have come to understand that many of those around me do not notice.  They are not capable of understanding or perceiving spiritual or physical beauty.  It is not important to them.  What is?  It is like being surrounded by rabid animals or mad cow disease.  There is no rationale.  There is no logic.  Only is there aggression and chaos.  This has begun to affect my own philosophy of life, because I am having to care more about my own wellbeing  than I should.  I do not wake on an even playing field.  It is slanted sharply in many directions, and often I feel the opponent laughing at me before I begin the game.  Then I remember this is what it feels like to be Jesus or a Christian.  I don't know what we have become in America, but although openly we do not decapitate lost sheep we do.  America's capitalism is no different than Extreme Islam.  Each sacrifices its own weakest links in the sake of money and power.  It is gratifying that many important issues affecting the quality of life in America have been dealt with by our president.  Only history will show how effective of a president he has been.  The antithesis to the quality of life in America for those who are not wealthy shout "Socialist" without ever taking the time to understand what it means.  It is apparent to me that America's new pseudonym must be changed from Nottinghamshire to Appalachia.  Our indigenous people are no different than the Viet Cong living in the tunnels of Chu Chi.  We defend our land without an understanding of our own existences.  "Squeal like a pig boy."